Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told Newsmax on Wednesday that he didn't know which version of Joe Biden he would get when he met with the president after Republicans gained the majority of the House in 2023.
"Every time I met with him, it was a different Joe Biden," McCarthy told "The Record With Greta Van Susteren" at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. "And I came out talking about this, and they would attack me.
"Once we won the majority but I wasn't sworn in as speaker yet, we had a meeting with the four leaders [of Congress], and we were negotiating the NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act]. He comes in and we're in the Roosevelt Room, and he has to start talking from notes. It's just us, right?
"He says something very extreme, and I just blurt out, and it frazzles him. He [closed] his papers and he can't negotiate anymore."
McCarthy said he got the sense that Biden had slowed and that he wasn't there mentally. Biden has been under intense pressure to withdraw from the presidential race after a halting and shaky debate performance last month against former President Donald Trump raised alarms about his cognitive state.
"It's not because he's hard and rigid in any of the places [or that] he's stubborn from that position," McCarthy said. "He could only negotiate from notes. But if he would state something and I'd debate the position he's at [and say], 'Well, I don't believe that's true and here's my facts why,' he couldn't come back with it.
"But I would tell you: Each meeting was different. I'd have a number of meetings, thinking, Oh my gosh, he's out of it. Then he'd come back and there'd be a meeting he was totally with it. I thought it'd be like a different person.”
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Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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